


Eat Well

by Edonohana



Category: Doctor Sleep (2019)
Genre: Double Drabble, Gen, Origin Story
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-16
Updated: 2020-09-16
Packaged: 2021-03-07 16:41:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 803
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26500816
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Edonohana/pseuds/Edonohana
Summary: Rose the Hat, through the years.
Comments: 3
Kudos: 17
Collections: King of Exchanges 2020





	Eat Well

**Author's Note:**

  * For [reeby10](https://archiveofourown.org/users/reeby10/gifts).



> This story contains child harm and death. It's less graphic than in canon.

****

**Ciarmac**

The True Knot had given her a gift beyond price—life, and more life, if not quite life eternal—but she intended to do her best to repay them. They had fed well on the pain and fear of the Black Death, but she thought they could feed better still. Have a little sweet after the meat, so to speak.

The boy Ciarmac blazed like a sun in his squalid little village. Exhausted, staggering, but determined, he went from hut to hut, laying on his hands and leaving life in his wake. 

Good for his village, not so good for him. The True Knot had no use for such healing. It only worked on the living. 

“Come out of that smelly, smoky hut,” she called to the boy. “I have something precious for you, a reward for your labor. Something sweet-smelling and beautiful. A rose.”

His steam was drained from so much use, so the True Knot kept him for a while, letting it build back up again. Grandpa Flick told her that in all his years, he’d rarely tasted anything so sweet and strong and fine. 

“I was right to choose you,” he said. “ _You’re_ precious. A rose.”

****

**Hamnet**

It was a fine time for pain and fear, and a fine time for finery. The True Knot had bedecked themselves according to their tastes, whether lavish or simple. Rose wore a wine-colored velvet jacket she had taken from a courtier and a string of pearls she had taken from his wife, when they had entered his house to feed on his youngest daughter.

Children died so easily, no one ever suspected if they were careful to leave no marks. The thefts were blamed on a maidservant, and the True Knot lingered in the shadows to drink her pain as well.

They might never have left London, but Rose sensed a child that was worth a trip. The boy lived in a town full of sheep and wool, and had a twin sister with no steam at all. But the boy, oh, the boy was a marvel. He walked among dreams, he traveled in thoughts, and he never said a word, but to tell his family stories.

“My father will hear of this!” the boy cried when they caught him. 

“What if he does?” Rose said with a shrug, and put her hand over his face for the final time.

****

**Josette**

“Live long, eat well,” Grandpa Flick had told her. He’d never said, “Live forever.”

But centuries had gone by, and she’d never seen one of the True Knot die. She’d certainly never imagined that her own chosen one, an illusionist who’d kept his stage name of Michel the Magnificent, wouldn’t live any longer than if she’d never selected him at all. 

He shone like a diamond, glittering and sparkling, leaving afterimages when you blinked. He’d always had a hunger, long before she’d taught him how to satisfy it. And yes, he’d been careless. Reckless. Even, she supposed, foolish. But his heart had been in the right place.

He’d brought her the girl as a gift. A pretty little thing, Josette the butcher’s daughter, broadcasting her pain and terror for all the world to hear, if they had the capacity. 

Turned out, somebody did. And the butcher’s wife had strong arms from chopping meat.

“Always check the parents,” Rose had told Michel. “They’re tainted, not good to eat, but they can have steam too. It makes them dangerous.”

He should have listened. 

She should have watched over him better.

Rose plucked his top hat from the pile of dust and ashes.

****

**Ashley**

Crow Daddy found the girl at a comic book shop in the bad part of town, which meant the good part of town for the True Knot—no one would call the police about screams.

“I know what you are,” Ashley said, struggling vainly against the hands that held her down. “I’ve read about you. You’re vampires!”

“We’re much older and more interesting than that,” said Rose the Hat. “Grandpa Flick here is the oldest member of the True Knot, but he wasn’t its founder. Our origins are as ancient as humanity. We’ve feasted at fires and floods, plagues and wars. We’ve eaten pushers and dreamers and thinkers, and many movers like you, my dear.” 

A floorboard shattered and a fragment flew at Rose the Hat. She caught it in one hand. “Much stronger movers than you.”

Ashley bared her teeth. “We’ll see about that!”

But in the end, of course, they ate her. There had never been any doubt about that. The individual members of the True Knot would live long, not forever, but the True Knot itself was eternal. So long as steam existed, the True Knot would endure. 

What was a little girl to say about that?


End file.
